History Channel

A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?
I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments .eg
Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way not Rab all)
The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an assassination..
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision bombers
not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

They are a few of very many I can recall.

"GC" wrote in message
...
A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?
I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments .eg
Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way not Rab
all)
The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an assassination..
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision bombers
not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

The USAAF had a different name for "carpet Bombing"
but it was the same thing. If one considers
that the weather in Europe is sufficiently bad
that if the USAAF didn't BOMB THROUGH
CLOUD (carpet bombing by another name)
they wouldn't have bombed at all.
There were many days when the USAAF
did their "precision bombing" using
H2S GEE GH and Oboe, the same as
the RAF. American bomb aimers using
these "precission blind bombing"
devices could no more pick out a factory
that should be bombed than could the RAF
bomb aimers.

If the sky was clear when the USAAF bombed,
ONLY the LEAD aircraft bombardier
aimed at the "precision target" and when he
"toggled" his bomb load, ALL the rest
of the bombardiers/toggliers dropped their
bombs. If you consider the horizontal
area covered by all the USAAF bombers
when they "toggled" their bombs one would
have to believe that the factory/military
target must have taken up a huge area
on the ground so that the USAAF could honestly
make the claim that "they only bombed
military targets"!

One should also mention that the lie
that the USAAF DIDN'T TARGET CIVILIANS
can be put to rest, because the escorting fighter
pilots were ORDERED to STRAF civilians
on their way home.

Bit of hypocracy involved one might say!







They are a few of very many I can recall.

"GC" wrote in message
...
A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?
I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments .eg
Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way not Rab
all)
The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an assassination..
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision bombers
not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

They are a few of very many I can recall.

I've heard the term terrorists instead of enemy being used a bit too.
As in the japanese terrorist raid on pearl harbour.

"GC" wrote in message
...
A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?
I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments .eg
Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way not Rab
all)

Don't know.

The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an assassination..

Arguably. When they tried to target Sadam during the invasion of Iraq there
was some discussion of this. It turns out that Churchill was reluctant to
assassinate Hitler. Think about it: if it was legal for the USAF to attempt
to take out Saddam, would it also be legal for the Iraqi insurgents to send
a suicide bomber to London to target Blair? You have to be very careful
with the law and "OK" doesn't always equate to "legal".

B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision bombers
not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

Covered better than I could do by Robert. Personally, I feel very
uncomfortable when the Dams Raid is celebrated: it did very little to hamper
German industry but did kill an awful number of civilians; largely French
slave labourers IIRC. Arguably a terrorist attack.

Revisionist history should, in my view, like all forms of debate, be
encouraged. My own approach, though, is to keep my voice down when the
people who lived through it are still around. By modern standards, Harris's
"reap the whirlwind" policy was terrorist and genocidal, but then again, my
parents lived through the blitz, lost friends, saw civilian bodies being
dragged out of bombed buildings, etc, and therefore have a completely
different point of view.

"Neil Hoskins" wrote in message
...




B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision bombers
not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

Covered better than I could do by Robert. Personally, I feel very
uncomfortable when the Dams Raid is celebrated: it did very little to
hamper German industry

German industry was seriously affected. The quick recovery
was because of the resources used to repair the damage.
The Todt Organisation was used inside Germany for the
first time, leaving the defences on the French coast
incomplete.
Agricultural land was scrubbed of all top soil for
miles below the dams and never again during
WW II did they produce any food for the Reich.


but did kill an awful number of civilians; largely French slave labourers
IIRC. Arguably a terrorist attack.

John Sweetman in his book The Dambusters Raid states that
approximaely 1,200 civilians were killed, most of them Russian
slaves, as well as citizens of occupied Europe.

The dams were repaired rather more quickly than the
British expected, made the more easy because
the RAF did not attempt to bomb the dams under repair.
Bomber Command, in spite of claims to the contrary,
was able to hit small targets from high altitude, and could
have bombed the dams from altitude whenever they wished.
Maintenance of aim was lost.


Revisionist history should, in my view, like all forms of debate, be
encouraged. My own approach, though, is to keep my voice down when the
people who lived through it are still around. By modern standards,
Harris's "reap the whirlwind" policy

The policy that governed the targetting of Bomber Commands raids
was formulated and dispatched to Bomber Command before Harris
took up his post at BC. He had NO input into that policy.


was terrorist and genocidal,

Some author asked in his book about the air war against Germany
asked the question whether there is any difference between attacking
and killing men and women in Wermacht uniforms using the war
material and men and women in I.G.Farben/Ford/Opel uniforms, turning out the
war material.

IIRC his answer was NO!





but then again, my parents lived through the blitz, lost friends, saw
civilian bodies being dragged out of bombed buildings, etc, and therefore
have a completely different point of view.

GC wrote:
A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?

Of course it isn't. It's just rewriting history to show the USA in a
very good light, and everyone else as being not so good, if they were
allies, and really bad, if they were the "enemy".

I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments .eg
Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way not Rab all)
The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an assassination..
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision bombers
not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

They are a few of very many I can recall.


--
Moving things in still pictures!

"®i©ardo" wrote in message
...
GC wrote:
A question to the group. Is the History channel distorting the facts?

Of course it isn't. It's just rewriting history to show the USA in a very
good light,

Robin Neillands has a paragraph in one of his books
that states that all non-American participants
in WW II have been and are being airbrushed
out of history.

How about this bit of history about Normandy?

"The stategy developed, and plan prepared for Operation Overlord by the
Allied Ground Force Commander, the British General Sir Bernard Law
Montgomery, was *flawed* in concept and failed to work in practice.
Eventually, frustrated by the failure of Montgomery's strategy and the
caution
and timidity of the British and Canadian troops, American forces under
Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton seized the initiative, revised
the plan, broke out in the West, drove back the German forces in
disarray, to win the Normandy battle-and the war.
All this they would have done much sooner if the British
and Canadians had not sat in their trenches drinking tea-American
historians never fail to mention tea-while the US forces did all the
fighting.
The outcome of the Normandy battle-so goes the allegation-would
have been far more conclusive if the aforesaid British and Canadians had not
been "timid" and "cautious" and "slow" at Falaise, thereby allowing
the German Army to escape across the Seine."

Some times referred to as "airbrushing" all non-american
fighting forces during WW II out of the scene!

"Robert Sveinson" wrote in message
news

"®i©ardo" wrote in message
...
GC wrote:
A question to the group. Is the History channel distorting the facts?

Of course it isn't. It's just rewriting history to show the USA in a very
good light,

Robin Neillands has a paragraph in one of his books
that states that all non-American participants
in WW II have been and are being airbrushed
out of history.

How about this bit of history about Normandy?

"The stategy developed, and plan prepared for Operation Overlord by the
Allied Ground Force Commander, the British General Sir Bernard Law
Montgomery, was *flawed* in concept and failed to work in practice.
Eventually, frustrated by the failure of Montgomery's strategy and the
caution
and timidity of the British and Canadian troops, American forces under
Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton seized the initiative, revised
the plan, broke out in the West, drove back the German forces in
disarray, to win the Normandy battle-and the war.
All this they would have done much sooner if the British
and Canadians had not sat in their trenches drinking tea-American
historians never fail to mention tea-while the US forces did all the
fighting.
The outcome of the Normandy battle-so goes the allegation-would
have been far more conclusive if the aforesaid British and Canadians had
not
been "timid" and "cautious" and "slow" at Falaise, thereby allowing
the German Army to escape across the Seine."


Now that really is scandalously insulting to the memory of the men who
fought and died in Operation Goodwood.

GC wrote:

A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?
I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments
.eg Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way
not Rab all) The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an
assassination..
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision
bombers not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

They are a few of very many I can recall.


The only one of those that is totally incorrect is Americans landing in
Rabaul during WW2.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
GC wrote:

A question to the group.
Is the History channel distorting the facts?
I have noticed in recent weeks a number of totally incorrect comments
.eg Americans landing in Rabaul during WW2,(its Rab owl by the way
not Rab all) The shooting down of Yamamoto's aircraft was an
assassination..
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision
bombers not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?

They are a few of very many I can recall.


The only one of those that is totally incorrect is Americans landing in
Rabaul during WW2.

Also incorrect.
B17's being used during the day in Europe as they were precision
bombers not carpet bombers as the RAF were ?